This invention relates to the sport of snowboarding, in general, and to an arrangement for supporting the weight of a snowboard while riding up a chairlift, in particular.
As is well known and understood, snowboarding is one of the fastest, if not the fastest growing sport today. With it, as is known, the front foot of the participant is always secured in place by the binding of the front mount of the board, while the rear foot of the participant is secured in place at the back mount when utilizing the snowboard, but is freed from it while riding a chairlift back up the mountain. During those occasions, however, problems can result. For example, the participant riding the lift can either support the snowboard with the foot free from the mount; or could just let the snowboard hang by the foot secured in the front mounting. The situation that develops, however, is that with the participant twenty feet up in the air, riding up the chairlift, winds typically abound, of an extent to thrash the snowboard about. In the case where the snowboard is supported by the free foot, this often results in injuries to the toes supporting the board. In the case where the snowboard is hanging freely, the encountered winds thrashing the board about often have the tendency to cause injury to the ligaments, tendons and muscles of the front foot bound in the mounting. Obviously, furthermore, even where headwinds are not encountered, just the weight of the snowboard itself has a tendency to pull on the ligaments, tendons, muscles, etc., causing damage over timexe2x80x94with the enhanced possibility of that occurring at the end of the day after the participant""s leg has tired through hours of activity. Experience has shown that even with snowboards made of fiberglass or similar resinsxe2x80x94weighing of the order of 10-15 lbs.xe2x80x94there results this undesired pulling on the tendons, ligaments and muscles producing a stress which it would be desirable to reduce, and to the extent possible, eliminate.
It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to provide a new and improved arrangement for supporting the weight of a snowboard while riding up the mountain on a chairlift.
It is an object of the present invention, also, to provide such an arrangement which can be easily deployed for use, and released upon reaching the top of the mountain.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such an arrangement which can be easily attached at the beginning of the chairlift ride, and which can be just as easily detached at the end of it, with the arrangement then being able to be simply carried about in one""s pocket.
It is a further object of the invention to provide such an arrangement for snowboard use which requires virtually no modification whatsoever to the equipment being used, in order that it can be immediately deployed for use, without any alteration of the snowboarding equipment utilized by the participant.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide such an arrangement which can be utilized for all sizes of snowboards in use, for all types of configurations employed, and for all users of no matter what their skill levels may be, without having to modify the equipment already possessed.
As will become clear from the following description, a temporary hold-up device for snowboard support while riding a chair lift includes a substantially stiff cord of limited give, at a first end of which a releasable clasp is provided to encircle the restraint bar of the chairlift, while at a second opposite end of which a hook is provided to couple to a rear binding of one of the front and back foot mountings on the snowboard, by which the restraint bar serves to hold and restrain the snowboard against flopping about. As will be seen, in a preferred embodiment, the hook is provided with a substantially U-shape opening to slide under a rear binding of the back foot mounting, while the releasable clasp includes a spring-loaded gate biased to a quiescent closed positionxe2x80x94but which is openable in response to a momentary force temporarily applied to deflect the gate away from that quiescent closed point. By fabricating the hook of a heavy duty plastic composition, and by fabricating the clasp of a heavy duty metal composition, a relatively inexpensive cord can be had, and whose substantial stiffness, with limited give, serves to utilize the restraint bar of the chairlift to support the weight of the snowboard. Whereas analysis has shown that the substantially stiff cord could join to either the rear binding on the front or back mounting, securing it to the rear binding of the back mounting is preferable, in that the other, free foot, could then rest atop the snowboard while the participant is riding up the mountain. In such arrangement, the snowboard then becomes a xe2x80x9crestxe2x80x9d for the free foot, while the restraint bar supplies all the support for the snowboard, freeing the front foot from any stress, tension, or undue pull on its tendons, ligaments and muscles.